Tracking the Lore (2022)

In the summer of 2019-2020 the east coast of Australia was scarred by the most destructive wildfires in recorded history. The devastation ripped through towns and native wilderness alike, reshaping the landscape with an apocalyptic scene. Native Elder of the Budawang people expresses his emotions after losing everything. Country was a very different place back in 1788 when the first Europeans came here. The land was nurtured and managed well, the ecosystem balanced. When colonisation took away cultural land management from the traditional custodians, the ferocity of environmental destruction amplified over time. There was something else the settlers were oblivious to; this was an elusive presence that held the balance of nature in great hands, perhaps as ancient as the land itself. They were known as the guardians of the land. Giants that coexisted with the indigenous people for thousands of years. Although rare, these forest folk are still sighted today in the Australian wilderness. The Australian Bigfoot, referred to as the Dooligah in parts of the East Coast are known for their stealth, mass, strength and ability to call even the most inhospitable and impenetrable terrain home. Now, where the mountains once echoed their presence there is nothing. What happened to them? Did they migrate away or did they recede deep into the mountains ... or were they just an undocumented statistic? To understand these fundamental questions, producer Attila Kaldy embarks on a mission to discover an ancient connection between country, people and forest folk. This leads to ongoing expeditions, searching for signs of Australia's Bigfoot within the destruction zone. Evidence slowly mounts, some in the most unlikely places. Hope is ignited when thermal footage from Queensland's Hinterland and an accidental video capture in the Gondwana Rainforest, in New South Wales, surface. Was this a sign of mass migration or are these giants just moving within their own territories? In an unexpected turn of events, reports of another cryptid are presented to the producer. In the forests on the outskirts of Sydney, an unsavoury presence is lurking. Are these creatures replacing the absent Dooligah population?